2018 fiesta st autocross setup help

[Fiestadude]

Hey guys,

I'm trying to setup my 2018 fiesta st to be competitive in H-street. I've been looking around for info and a lot of it isn't consistent with other threads. I want to hear from people who autocross in H-street maybe even do some national events. My questions are listed below.

1) Wheels and tires: I'm gonna go with a 16 inch 42mm offset wheels. What size tires do you guys recommend? I know people either run 205-45-16s or 205-50-16s re71s. The 205-50-16s are cheaper but I'm worried about increasing the center of gravity and making the fiesta potentially even more of a roll over risk.

2) Alignment: I know the rear doesn't have any adjustment. For the fronts I should try to get as much negative camber as I can get? What about toe?

3) Shocks and suspension: How viable in the suspension? I was thinking about getting koni yellows in the rear. Is the adjustment worth it? The car seems to be pretty tail happy as is. The 2018 already has a stiffer front bar than the earlier years and the car is already lifting the rear wheel quite a bit, does a thicker rear bar improve anything?

4) catback and air filter. What catback and airfilter do yo guys recommend? I daily this car so I don't want something super loud.

Thanks guys.

 

[LargeRubberFist]

What wheels have you chosen? Rpf1s seem to be the go to lightest choice. 50 series tires will get you a bit faster in 2nd, I'd personally lean towards them on the price alone but my courses tend to be set up favoring the top of 2nd. I might feel differently if we tended towards tighter/slower runs but probably not because... I'm not really a good enough driver for it to make that much of a difference.

Catback seems like a waste of $$ for a couple pounds lightness to me if you're not competing on the national level, but we're back to skill (or lack thereof) coloring any advice I'd give. What could be a legitimate benefit for you won't have a noticeable effect for a hamfisted driver like me.

 

[Fiestadude]

What wheels have you chosen? Rpf1s seem to be the go to lightest choice. 50 series tires will get you a bit faster in 2nd, I'd personally lean towards them on the price alone but my courses tend to be set up favoring the top of 2nd. I might feel differently if we tended towards tighter/slower runs but probably not because... I'm not really a good enough driver for it to make that much of a difference.

Catback seems like a waste of $$ for a couple pounds lightness to me if you're not competing on the national level, but we're back to skill (or lack thereof) coloring any advice I'd give. What could be a legitimate benefit for you won't have a noticeable effect for a hamfisted driver like me.

I'm getting the ultraleggeras. I'm ordering from tirerack the rpf1s don't appear to be on there.

 

[jeffreylyon]

2) Alignment: I know the rear doesn't have any adjustment. For the fronts I should try to get as much negative camber as I can get? What about toe?

I'm not sure if you can run camber bolts in H-S, but, if so, I think that the magic number is 2º, depending upon your tire, of course. Chalk the tires and see. I've set toe to 0º as that seems a decent compromise between too twitchy for the street and easy to rotate for the cones/track.

3) Shocks and suspension: How viable in the suspension? I was thinking about getting koni yellows in the rear. Is the adjustment worth it? The car seems to be pretty tail happy as is. The 2018 already has a stiffer front bar than the earlier years and the car is already lifting the rear wheel quite a bit, does a thicker rear bar improve anything?

I can't say re. the stock suspension as I went coilovers pretty early on (stay away from ST Suspensions!) but, even with increased rates and reduced height the torsion bar stiffener was a nice improvement. It just seems that the improved rear roll rate make the rotation more predictable and if the 2018 has a stiffer front a little more roll rate in the rear might be nice. I've heard that the Koni yellows and/or oranges are next to impossible to get.

4) catback and air filter. What catback and airfilter do yo guys recommend? I daily this car so I don't want something super loud.

I'm still on stock. I think that the hot ticket is the Thermal cat back. Whoosh stocks it. I'm not sure that a filter is going to make any difference in sound or power on a stock tune. The cat back won't make any power difference until you've got a BT monster.

 

[Fiestadude]

I'm still looking for toe alignment recommendations

 

[EKFiestaST]

I'm getting the ultraleggeras. I'm ordering from tirerack the rpf1s don't appear to be on there.

Did you end up with the ultraleggeras? how were they?

 

[AZSP33D]

I'm still looking for toe alignment recommendations

I set toe-out a few times trying to get the car to slalom transition quicker and now I end up at exactly zero on the grease plates... some set up with up to 1/16 toe-out, and on the RWD cars I used to set 1/32 toe-out front and 1/32 toe-in rear, and you can feel the rolling resistance build even at 1/16 pushing the car around. I use Longacre toe plates and grease plates, and it seems to be very accurate and repeatable, keeping the toe plates up and even with small bungees on the tires, car and plates level, etc... seen people do it with the toe plates all the way down and without using grease plates, and I don't think you can get a good reading or setting that way at all. I've noticed over the years that we can actually eyeball the toe setting pretty good if we have a good feel for the baseline and the tires, and I always check this when done.

Main thing is to set camber as far negative as you can stretch it, and then it needs a toe adjustment to realign... BTW two Fiesta ST's I've aligned had a LOT of toe-in before adjustment and you can usually see a trail of tire dust from the front fender well even from highway use, not good.

For straight line driving, having some negative camber introduces an egg-rolling effect that also needs some toe-out to compensate for, but the slight negative camber you can stretch it seems to be negligible.

 

[Shikari]

I can tell you right now I went to AutoX with two HStreet guys while I was in STH and they beat my ass (given, I also didn't know how to turn off traction control). I would just get a set of 16's with 205/45/16 RE71r and call it a day.

As far as catbacks go, my Cobb is super quiet. If you're buying one for performance, don't waste our money. The power to weight ratio of a catback makes it not worth it.

 

[Mikey456]

As far as catbacks go, my Cobb is super quiet. If you're buying one for performance, don't waste our money. The power to weight ratio of a catback makes it not worth it.[/QUOTE]

How do u like the sound of the Cobb? I think I might want just a little more sound then stock.




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[kivnul]

I set toe-out a few times trying to get the car to slalom transition quicker and now I end up at exactly zero on the grease plates....

+1 at this setup. I run 0 toe and -2 degrees camber. The camber alone has helped with outside tire wear.

 

[Shikari]

As far as catbacks go, my Cobb is super quiet. If you're buying one for performance, don't waste our money. The power to weight ratio of a catback makes it not worth it.

How do u like the sound of the Cobb? I think I might want just a little more sound then stock.




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk[/QUOTE]

It's fine. I'm going to buy a DP soon and debate if I want to keep it or buy something louder. I typically like a quiet bar, but bang for noise with the COBB kit was very disappointing.